The Unfair But Completely Just God - Deut 7:6-8, Matt 20:1-16, Luke 13:22-30 and others

Today I am deviating from our study in Isaiah to address a particular issue.  This will be more of a lecture than an expository sermon.  I encourage you to take notes.  Some of you will have questions regarding what I am about to teach.  Write those questions down and I’ll try to address them later.  But not during the lecture.  Just be patient.

Within the past six weeks or so, I had a casual conversation with a good friend in which we talked about a number of things, not all of which were particularly spiritual or biblical.  We always talk about a variety of topics, as was the case on this occasion.  But after our time together, I wrote an email and said the following:

“In this particular conversation, the one thing you said in passing is the one thing I have not been able to forget.  And although you didn't say it this way, I believe this is what you meant: It is unfair of God to require faith in Jesus Christ exclusively for salvation.  It is unfair to have only one means of salvation.  Or at the very least, it is unfair that God does not give all people everywhere equal access to the one means of salvation which is Christ.”

“Is that an accurate statement of your thinking?  Sometime, with your permission, I'd like to address this at length either in person or in print.  I understand that this exclusivity is hard to accept because it does offend our sense of fairness and justice, and we have every reason to expect fairness and justice from God.  Especially from God!  Thus the problem.”

I received a response in which I was encouraged to address this.  I had indeed understood the complaint, or maybe a better word would be concern.  It is one that many people have.  This week, in talking with another friend, I heard the very same concern verbalized.  It was suggested that my understanding of God, particularly as it concerns the doctrines of salvation and predestination, tends to put God in a very bad light by making Him appear to be unfair.

As it was explained to me by both parties, if God arbitrarily chooses to grant salvation to some people but not others, then He is not fair.  But we all have a pretty good idea that God, of all “people”, must be fair, the epitome of fairness.  Surely a fair God would at least offer all people an equal opportunity to receive Christ as Savior.  Or at the very least, He would grade on a curve when the time of final judgment comes.  How could a fair God hold all people equally accountable to the same standard of perfection when all people have not had the same access to divine revelation and, therefore, to forgiveness and salvation in Christ?

These are reasonable questions and logical concerns.  They seem to be unavoidable, particularly if one begins talking about God electing to save a particular group of people to salvation while neglecting all the rest.  Of course, the fairness and equitability of God would be a major concern.  Lately, those concerns have been more obvious than usual. 

I decided to begin writing about this and it morphed into a sermon.  Let me state how I understand the problem as clearly and succinctly as I can: If Jesus Christ is in fact the exclusive means of salvation for all people, and if God is fair, then all people should be given an opportunity to hear about Christ in order to be saved from the wrath of God and receive eternal life.

Another way of stating the case from a slightly different perspective would be this: If God is fair (and virtually everyone assumes He is), then all people should get an opportunity to either accept or reject Jesus Christ as their Savior.  Anything else would be unfair.  Or, if someone does not receive an opportunity to hear the gospel message regarding Jesus Christ, then in order for God to be fair, He would need to supply some other means of salvation.  God would be unfair to hold someone eternally accountable for not responding to a message they never heard.  So in order to maintain His fairness towards all people, those who do not hear of Christ must be granted an opportunity to be saved by some other means.

The more I talk, the more complicated this gets! 

The universal presupposition is that God not only is fair, but He must be fair.  We feel this conviction that God has a moral obligation to treat all people equally especially in a matter as serious as salvation.  Either the entire human race should be given equal access to the Gospel, or God should not hold people eternally accountable for rejecting a Savior they never knew.

We find it hard to believe that God would be unfair to anyone.  And that is not an unreasonable expectation.  We expect good, moral people to be fair and honest.  Why would we expect anything less from a perfectly moral Supreme Being? 

So then the question is, “How can God be fair AND the seemingly unfair biblical doctrine of predestination also be true?“  I think that is the dilemma people face when confronted with the doctrines of grace.  How is it fair that God saves some, but not all, and especially those who never had access to the gospel message?  

I want to approach this by stating three presuppositions most people assume to be true.  The first one is this: God must be fair.  We are loathe to think He could be otherwise.  Cheaters, liars, bigots, homophobes, Islamophobes, and filthy rich people who don’t pay taxes are not fair.  Police officers and government officials who throw around their weight aren’t fair.  But God, if He is a good God, is surely the most fair being in the universe.  If fairness is a virtue, then God is of necessity perfectly fair. To be unfair would be sinful.

The second presupposition is this: Salvation is the work of God.  Even the most vociferous opponents of the doctrines of election and predestination would not deny that.  It is God who ultimately accomplishes our redemption, not us.  God loved the world, God sent His Son, Jesus died for us, and the Holy Spirit brings us to repentance and faith.  That, for the vast majority of people who believe the Bible, is true.  Although many would say we play a small role in our salvation by believing in Christ, even so, God gets all the glory for our salvation because it is His work (which is a contradiction most people decide to live with).

Thirdly, it is an irrefutable fact among biblical Christians that God does not save everyone.  Not everyone goes to Heaven.  Hell is real.  Of course, there are those Universalists who attempt to solve this quandary regarding God’s fairness by teaching that He DOES save all people and grant them eternal life, including Adolph Hitler and Idi Amin and Osama Bin Laden and Attilla the Hun.  That would seem to be fair treatment on the part of God.  Everyone on the human team gets a heavenly crown and no one is ultimately held responsible for their actions. 

But the only problem with that is it isn’t true.  One can hardly read the New Testament and come within the length of a dozen football fields of that position.  In the Gospels, we see that Jesus believed in, and taught of a literal place called Hell.  Repeatedly.  As did the other New Testament writers.

So here are the three points most Christians believe to be true which I want to consider as we think about this matter of fairness in salvation:

1. God is fair to all.

2. God is the ultimate giver of salvation.

3. God does not save all people.

(And once again I might add, it has been my observation that Christians who agree with all three points don't seem to see any contradiction in them.)

In John 12:8, Jesus said to His disciples, “The poor you have with you always”.  That has certainly been the case ever since Jesus said it.  But if there will always be poor people and we will never solve the problem of poverty, does that prove inequity on God’s part?  It seems to be a prophecy regarding the future, perpetual unfairness of God towards men.  If God always was, always is, and always will be fair, then it seems reasonable to expect that all people would experience the same social and economic status.  It would be unfair for God to allow both the rich and the destitute to coexist “always”.  

• It certainly seems unfair of God to allow some people to be born in free countries with access to the Gospel while multitudes are born in atheistic, Communist countries.  

• It seems unfair that some nations enjoy a literacy rate of 90% while others are closer to 10.  

• It seems unfair for God to allow me to have a nice, warm home and plenty of food to eat, and a shiny, well-maintained car in the driveway while tens of thousands in Haiti live in tents and are totally dependent upon the mercy of others for their survival.  

• It seems unfair that so many people are abundantly blessed while others suffer constantly. 

If God is sovereign over all these things, if He has the power to treat all men equally, then isn’t it reasonable to conclude, just from looking around us, that God isn’t being exactly fair?  Even with us who are sitting here in this room right now?  Some have battled with cancer while others have not.  Some have difficult marriages, and other don’t.  Some have children who love them and others don’t.  Some are able to pay all their bills regularly, and others struggle perpetually.  Some of us are pretty smart, and others of us, . . . well, . . . not so much.  Most of us can hear pretty well while two of us are deaf!  How is this fair?

As Christians, we need to look at all of life from the perspective of the Scriptures.  In regard to God being fair, we need to ask this question: Does the Bible present God as being fair in the same way we typically define fairness?  Is it our own experience that causes us to believe that God should be consistently fair and completely equitable toward all people, all the time?  Or do we hold that position because the Bible teaches it? 

The Bible is our final authority, not our experience. We would even go so far as to say that if our experience doesn’t agree with Scripture, then we need to re-examine our interpretation of our experience.  I believe that is exactly what we’re dealing with here.  We are determining what God’s character should be like by leaning on our own understanding instead of depending upon the word of God.  Our own doctrinal statement says this: “The Scriptures of the Old and New Testament were given by inspiration of God, and are the only sufficient, certain and authoritative rule of all saving knowledge, faith and obedience.”  

We must go to the Scriptures to determine what is true about God.  We must go to the Bible to find how we should think and what we should believe about God.  We cannot afford to disregard divine revelation and depend upon experience or what Momma says to form right ideas about God.  The Bible is the only sufficient, certain and authoritative rule for our lives.  That is where we take our stand.  All other ground is, sooner or later, sinking sand.

In Deuteronomy 7, we read a very clear statement regarding God’s unfairness.  Please turn there with me.  Yes, the Bible does in fact teach that God is not always fair as we typically define fairness.

[6] “For you [Israel] are a people holy to the LORD your God. The LORD your God has chosen you to be a people for his treasured possession, out of all the peoples who are on the face of the earth. [7] It was not because you were more in number than any other people that the LORD set his love on you and chose you, for you were the fewest of all peoples, [8] but it is because the LORD loves you and is keeping the oath that he swore to your fathers, that the LORD has brought you out with a mighty hand and redeemed you from the house of slavery, from the hand of Pharaoh king of Egypt.  (Deuteronomy 7:6-8 ESV)

Clearly, at least in Old Testament times, God showed extreme preferential treatment to the Jews.  But what really surprises me about that is that I have yet to meet an Evangelical Christian who would deny it.  Virtually 100% of Bible-believing Christians agree that the Jews were (and in most cases they would say the Jews still are) God’s chosen people.  That is biblically irrefutable.  And it has been my observation that they say that with absolutely no sense of unfairness on the part of God.  

But let me ask this question: Should it not be obvious that when we acknowledge Israel as God’s chosen people, we are in effect saying the rest of the entire human race (us Gentiles) are, by default, the “un-chosen?”  But I’ve never seen anyone even bat an eye at that obvious fact.  Everyone believes without question that the Jews were chosen by God, the Gentiles were not, and that’s all OK.  God is somehow perfectly fair in His blatant preferential treatment of the Jews in the Old Testament to the near total neglect of the rest of the Gentile world. 

In the New Testament, the apostle Paul speaks of the great advantages of the Jews:

[3:1] Then what advantage has the Jew? Or what is the value of circumcision? [2] Much in every way. To begin with, the Jews were entrusted with the oracles of God. [9:4] They are Israelites, and to them belong the adoption, the glory, the covenants, the giving of the law, the worship, and the promises. [5] To them belong the patriarchs, and from their race, according to the flesh, is the Christ who is God over all, blessed forever. Amen.  (Romans 3:1-2, 9:4-5 ESV)

That is clearly preferential treatment toward the Jews on God’s part.  I don’t know how else we can interpret it.  They were in, we were out.  God chose them from all the peoples of the earth to be His peculiar, exclusive, treasured possession.  The Bible says so.  The rest of the world was left on the outside, looking in on the party, wishing they could have a special relationship with God like the Jews.  Or so we might think if we never read the rest of the Scriptures.

Then Paul goes on to say even more regarding the exclusion of non-Jews by God.  Prior to the coming of Christ, the Gentile nations of the world were, for all practical purposes, completely cut off from the access to God that the Jews (presumably) enjoyed:

[11] Therefore remember that at one time you Gentiles in the flesh, called “the uncircumcision” by what is called the circumcision, which is made in the flesh by hands— [12] remember that you were at that time separated from Christ, alienated from the commonwealth of Israel and strangers to the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world. (Ephesians 2:11-12 ESV) 

How could it be any more unfair?  In other words, if you lived in the centuries prior to Christ, and you lived some distance from Jerusalem, and you were not a descendant of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, you were very much “out of blessing!”  God most definitely was not fair in His treatment of non-Jews in the Old Testament, as we normally define fairness.  On the contrary, God was obviously biased towards the people of Israel to the neglect of the Gentile world, and He said so!  But then, in order to add some confusion to this mix, we also read this from the pen of Paul:

[9] There will be tribulation and distress for every human being who does evil, the Jew first and also the Greek [i.e Gentiles], [10] but glory and honor and peace for everyone who does good, the Jew first and also the Greek. [11] For God shows no partiality.  (Romans 2:9-11 ESV)

What did he say?  How can Paul say from one side of His mouth that historically, the Jews have received astounding preferential treatment from God, while also saying “God shows no partiality” between Jews and non-Jews?  At this point, if someone were to ask us if the Bible teaches that God is fair, our answer, biblically speaking, would have to be, “Well, yes and no.”  

However, let’s look at another New Testament text in which God is unfairly accused of being unfair.  Jesus is speaking about the kingdom of Heaven by means of a parable in Matthew chapter 20:

[20:1] “For the kingdom of heaven is like a master of a house who went out early in the morning to hire laborers for his vineyard. [2] After agreeing with the laborers for a denarius a day, he sent them into his vineyard. [3] And going out about the third hour he saw others standing idle in the marketplace, [4] and to them he said, ‘You go into the vineyard too, and whatever is right I will give you.’ [5] So they went. Going out again about the sixth hour and the ninth hour, he did the same. [6] And about the eleventh hour he went out and found others standing. And he said to them, ‘Why do you stand here idle all day?’ [7] They said to him, ‘Because no one has hired us.’ He said to them, ‘You go into the vineyard too.’ [8] And when evening came, the owner of the vineyard said to his foreman, ‘Call the laborers and pay them their wages, beginning with the last, up to the first.’ [9] And when those hired about the eleventh hour came, each of them received a denarius. [10] Now when those hired first came, they thought they would receive more, but each of them also received a denarius. [11] And on receiving it they grumbled at the master of the house, [12] saying, ‘These last worked only one hour, and you have made them equal to us who have borne the burden of the day and the scorching heat.’ [13] But he replied to one of them, ‘Friend, I am doing you no wrong. Did you not agree with me for a denarius? [14] Take what belongs to you and go. I choose to give to this last worker as I give to you. [15] Am I not allowed to do what I choose with what belongs to me? Or do you begrudge my generosity?’ [16] So the last will be first, and the first last.”  (Mt 20:1-16 ESV) 

The Master in this parable is God.  He invites men first thing in the morning to work for Him in His vineyard for a day’s wage.  Later in the day He hires others, and still later He hires more.  Finally, in the last hour of the day, He hires His last group of workers.  Then, when the workday is done, He gathers His workers and pays them all the same amount.

Naturally, the question becomes one of fairness: Is it fair for the Master to give the men who worked one hour the same amount of money He gave those who worked all day?  Is it fair for two men to work side by side, one for twelve hours, the other for only one hour, and they both are paid a day’s wage?  This is how labor unions get started!  If everyone gets the same pay, and no one got less than he bargained for, isn’t that fair?  Isn’t it fair for everybody on the team to get a trophy?

When the Master is understandably accused of being unfair by those who worked more than the others, the Master says, “Am I not allowed to do what I choose with what belongs to me? Or do you begrudge my generosity?’  Did they not all agree to work for Him?  Cannot the Master do with His money whatever He chooses?  “And if I choose to bless others in the same manner in which I’ve blessed you, are you going to be bitter towards Me for being kind?” 

I believe this parable was meant to be an allusion to God’s future treatment of the Gentiles.  Those whom Jesus designates as “the first” are the Jews whom God chose first, “early in the morning,” as His own people in ages past.  But soon, Peter will be sent to the house of Cornelius with the Gospel message, late in the day, and the Jews will move to the back of the line.  Then those designated “the last”, the Gentiles who will be brought into the kingdom after the resurrection of Christ, will finally move to the front of the line and be first, at least for a time.  God is going to turn the tables.  It is God who will make the Gentiles, who arrived very late, to be equal with the Jews who had already “borne the burden of the day” for millennia.  I believe that is what Jesus is saying here.  And the Jews will resent God’s equal, but in their minds unfair, treatment of the Gentiles. 

When we speak of God being fair, what we really mean is uniformity: Total equality in every way possible.  Zero bias, zero preferential treatment, zero discrimination, zero advantage of one person over another.  All men are created equal by God and God has a moral obligation to us to treat us all the same!  Let me say that again: “God has a moral obligation to us to treat us all the same, to treat us all fairly.”  You agree with that, don’t you?  Yes?  No?  Maybe?  Should I ask you again later?

While we can see demonstrably that God is not always fair, He is most certainly always just.  Fairness and justice are not the same thing.  Because God is the Creator of all men, then yes, He can do whatever He chooses with what belongs to Him.  That is precisely what Jesus is teaching.  But secondly, He is also teaching that men don’t like it.  They don’t like God’s sovereign authority.  It offends their sense of fairness.  

But according to the Scriptures, the sovereign God is also absolutely righteous and infinitely holy.  Everything He does cannot be anything other than just and right.  Abraham put it very succinctly when he said, “Will not the Judge of all the earth do right?“  And the answer is so evident it doesn’t even need to be verbalized.  That is precisely why Abraham calls God the Judge of all the earth.

Therefore, I submit to you that the presupposition that God is always fair is false.  God is not always fair.  He does not always act uniformly toward men.  He does not treat all men in the same manner.  He does not love all men everywhere in the same way or to the same degree.  So let’s re-word our first presuppositional statement:

1. God is not always fair, but He is always just.

2. God is the giver of salvation.

3. God does not save all people.

Now we need to define what it means for God to be just.  This is a word we normally consider to be synonymous with fair.  Such is not the case.  If a car salesman cheats every customer, he’s being fair but not just.  If the government imposes a law on the entire population that says everybody has to live on $5,000 a year, that is fair (assuming all the government officials are included) but it isn’t just.  We’d all starve to death!  And I don’t want you to think I’m merely splitting verbal hairs.  We need to be as precise as possible, particularly in our understanding of who God is and how He works in the world.  We need to understand Him as correctly as our little brains are capable of understanding Him.

God is not always fair, but He is always just.  In other words, while God does not always deal with all men in exactly the same way, He does always deal with all men righteously.  According to the Scriptures, everything God does is right because God is infinitely righteous. 

Let’s take the parable we just read as an example.  God was not fair to all the workers in the sense that He did not deal with all of them in precisely the same manner.  He was, in fact, better than fair.  He blessed some more than they deserved, but He cheated no one.  The men who worked all day got exactly what they expected to be paid.  All the others received a day’s pay also.  What is wrong with that?  Is that fair?  No.  Is it wrong?  No.  It was entirely God’s prerogative to pay some, but not all, more than they actually earned. 

Had God wanted to do so, He could have paid each worker an hourly wage.  Or He could have hired other people.  Or He could have employed no one at all.  He would be both just and fair in all those scenarios.  But when God blesses some proportionately more than others, while that may not fit our definition of fair, it is not unjust.  The reason for this is because He is under no obligation to bless anyone.  He can do with what is His as he pleases.  The vineyard belongs to Him, the employees work for Him, and the money is His to give.  But when He does not act fairly in the eyes of men, it causes self-righteous men to complain against Him, as was the case in this parable.  God is not always fair, but He is always just.

Second: God is the giver of salvation.  God is the source of every blessing we receive, the greatest blessing being the gift of salvation.  James reminds us,

[16] Do not be deceived, my beloved brothers. [17] Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change. (James 1:16-17 ESV)

If men are blessed in any way, it is because God is gracious and merciful.  If sinful men are not blessed to the same degree as others, they have not been cheated by an unjust God who withholds something He owes them.  God is not indebted to men to bless them.  We do not, and cannot earn any blessing or favor from God at all.  But God does grant all men a measure of common grace: The rain falls on the just and the unjust.

When God grants salvation to someone, it is exactly the opposite of what he deserves.  Paul tells us, “For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.” (Romans 6:23 ESV).  What all men have earned, the only thing men have a right to demand from God because of their works of sin and rebellion is death and Hell.  That is what all men rightfully deserve from God.  

Because of sin, all men are under the curse and wrath of God.  That is obviously not clearly understood by the general public.  It isn’t even understood by many Christians.  Evangelicals are loathe to talk about this.  But the fact is, if God were completely fair, and treated all men equally as their deeds deserve, Heaven would be entirely unoccupied by humans.  There would be no salvation.  

So while God is the source of eternal justice, He is also the source of eternal blessing.  The Scriptures tell us salvation belongs to the Lord.  He owns eternal life.  And to quote Matthew 20 again, God says, Am I not allowed to do what I choose with what belongs to me?  Salvation, along with every lesser blessing, is His to give or withhold as He pleases.  Unlike condemnation, no one has a right to salvation.  It is most certainly not the result of a wage earned.  Rather, it is a gift freely given by God to whomever He chooses, IF He chooses.  We’ve all earned death and Hell.  If God grants someone eternal life, the that is entirely God’s choice, not man’s right.  And He can give it, or withhold it.  He can bless all men equally, or He can bless some more than others, or He can give all men exactly what they have earned by their rebellion against Him: Hell.

So, 1) God is not always fair, but He is always just; 2) God (alone) is the giver of salvation. And 3), God does not give salvation to all.  Not all are saved. 

In our parable, God paid all the men He called to work in His vineyard.  But He did not call every man in the city of Jerusalem.  He hired some, but not all.  He didn’t have to hire any.  He could have let His vineyard go unattended.  But He hired some, they worked according to His orders, and He blessed them all with a day’s wages.

If God appears to be unfair because He does not save all people everywhere, it is only because we have lost sight of the fact that all men everywhere are constantly under the condemnation of a righteous God.  It is only the mercy of God that keeps us all from an eternal death any moment.  That is not a scare tactic, it is just a fact.  What we’ve earned as a result of the lives we’ve lived is eternal condemnation.  That sounds harsh, but it is because we do not fully understand the evil of our own sin, and we neglect to take seriously the threat of an incensed, offended holy God.

It is an infinite mercy toward men that God has created a way, any way at all, in which He can justly punish all sin without sending all men to Hell.  (That would clearly be the easiest route to take.)  If God does indeed hate sin as much as the Bible says He does, and if we have provoked that hatred by our sinfulness, and if God is just in His disgust against sinners, then why would any of us ever find fault with God because He does not choose to save all men, but He does save some from their sins AT HIS OWN EXPENSE?

God, totally according to His own good pleasure, chose to punish sin in two ways: By sending the guilty parties to Hell, and by sending His Son through Hell for the sake of some of the guilty parties.  It is at this point that people say, “That’s not fair!”  They are right.  It isn’t fair.  It isn’t fair that the innocent, righteous Son of God should bear the sins of others.  Of ANY others.  But it is God’s prerogative and He has chosen to do this for some, not all, according to His good pleasure.  

God chose to create a second means of justly punishing sin: through the sacrifice of His own Son.  But this second option was entirely the result of God’s grace, not because of obligation.  God would really and truly be entirely fair and just and right to send everyone to Hell forever to pay for their sins.  That is how terrible sin is.  That is how evil men are when they reject a holy God.

And it is clear from Scripture that the vast majority of the human race will go there.  Turn with me to Luke 13 as we close our time together.

[22] He [Jesus] went on his way through towns and villages, teaching and journeying toward Jerusalem. [23] And someone said to him, “Lord, will those who are saved be few?” And he said to them, [24] “Strive to enter through the narrow door. For many, I tell you, will seek to enter and will not be able. [25] When once the master of the house has risen and shut the door, and you begin to stand outside and to knock at the door, saying, ‘Lord, open to us,’ then he will answer you, ‘I do not know where you come from.’ [26] Then you will begin to say, ‘We ate and drank in your presence, and you taught in our streets.’ [27] But he will say, ‘I tell you, I do not know where you come from. Depart from me, all you workers of evil!’ [28] In that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth, when you see Abraham and Isaac and Jacob and all the prophets in the kingdom of God but you yourselves cast out. [29] And people will come from east and west, and from north and south, and recline at table in the kingdom of God. [i.e. Gentiles] [30] And behold, some are last who will be first [Gentiles], and some are first who will be last [Jews].”  (Luke 13:22-30 ESV)

1. God is not always fair, but He is always just.

2. God is the giver of salvation, but He is under no obligation to grant it to anyone.

3. God does not save all people.

Then there is number 4: Men are to strive to enter into salvation.  Are you striving to enter through the narrow door and avoid what your sin has earned?  Or will you resent God because He does not treat all people with undeserved mercy and grant them all eternal life at the expense of the blood of His own Son?  And will you remain resentful and indignant and murmur against God for His unfairness towards sinners until He says, “Depart from Me, you worker of evil?”